Whether or not you call the additions fo Apple Music “gifts” will depend on how much you value new music, but Apple appears to have exclusives other music services won’t have.
With November ending, it’s officially the season for holiday music, meaning you can dust off those playlists of “Jingle Bells” and “Run Rudolph” and the rest — including what is easily the best version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” by Brian Setzer (don’t @ me) — and get stuck into the sounds of the season.
Whether or not you love the music this time of year (or maybe haven’t found the best songs yet), there’s a good chance you have your favourites, and they’re probably consistent across every music streaming service. Most albums and tracks are shared across the entire bunch, because while there are exclusive shows and playlist as, typically music libraries are consistently large from no matter who you subscribe to. The feature set can be different — for instance, Tidal offers DJ access and lossless at a higher “HiFi” plan cost, while Apple Music provides lossless and Atmos for the same price as the standard plan — but the music selection is for the most part pretty much consistent.
But not always.
This year, Apple is adding some extra music on a day-by-day basis exclusive to its subscribers that won’t be seen on other streaming services.
Apple notes it will run the gamut of genres, including releases from Alicia Keys, Coldplay, Elton John, Lorde, Mariah Carey, and others, with releases every day this week through to December 4, though they’ll be there beyond it, too.
That could mean music releases, but may also be playlists, behind-the-scenes films, DJ mixes, and new small music releases (EPs) delivered in spatial audio, no less, potentially giving you a little more sound than just a small single or CD released to the platform.
This joins the assortment of holiday releases making their way to all music platforms now, though these additions will be Apple-only, at least for the moment. Our guess is that will remain this way for the time to come, particularly in the case of playlists and mixes, though as Apple’s iTunes Sessions can eventually be found on other music systems, it is possible that Apple Music releases could eventually make their way to Spotify and the like later in life. Maybe.
